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by Gina Trapani

Photo-sharing web application Flickr is like an onion: it has many, many layers to discover. Last February I published an article here on Lifehacker called Tips for Flickr beginners, a quick rundown on how to get started on Flickr. One year later I'm still as big a Flickr fan and user as ever, so it's about time to point out some of the more advanced features of the amazing, ever-evolving (yet e-less) service. If you're not already a Flickr member, do head back to the newbie article and get yourself going. If you've already got yourself a Yahoo! account you're halfway there.

Do be careful, though, once you choose your friendly Flickr URL for your photostream, you cannot change it.

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Upload photos via email.

Configure your Flickr account to accept photo uploads via email. Flickr will provide you with a secret email address that should go in the To: line of your email message. The title of the photo is the subject line of the email, and the photo description goes in the body of the message.

Upload by email may not sound like that big a deal, but it opens up a whole bunch of possibilities:

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

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From any one of your own photo pages - or anyone elses' photos which are bloggable - you can hit the Blog This button to post a photo to your site from Flickr. To do this you have to configure Flickr to talk to your weblog as well.

Display Flickr photos on your web site.

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

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Wanna include a strip of Flickr photos on your web site? Perhaps all the photos in your kid's Little League team Flickr group or tagged with conference title you organized, for the team or conference web site? Create a "Flickr Badge", which is a simple snippet of HTML which can include your photos, all public photos with a specific tag, or all the photos in a Flickr group on any public external web site.

Correspond with Flickr photographers.

If you've got a question about a particular photo not fit for comments (or if comments aren't enabled), you're in luck. Flickr has a full-fledged messaging system built into it. Hit the "Send [screen name] a message" link on every member profile in the right-hand column to send a message to any Flickr photographer. You've got a full-on inbox at Flickr yourself. To get to it, hit the envelope next to your screenname at the top of the home page when you're logged in. You can have Flickr messages forwarded to your email address as well. Set up your Notifications preferences here.

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But wait! There's more!

I could write screenfuls on the additional settings and features at Flickr, but right now I'll spare you and go machine gun-style and let you explore for yourself.

Also, be sure to check out the Flickr tag here on Lifehacker for a bevy of third-party Flickr apps and pointers. Have you made any fun discoveries on Flickr? Are you using the big E-less F in an unusual way? Let us know in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com.

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Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, whiles hours away on Flickr. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.